Born in Philadelphia in 1970, Kurt Rosenwinkel has emerged has one of the top new guitarists on the national scene. And you can hear why when the guitarist hits Dazzle, 930 Lincoln, tonight and Friday with his strong Standards Trio. After Rosenwinkel wraps up at Dazzle, it is pianist Marcus Roberts’ time to shine with his trio and the Denver Young Artists Orchestra (DYAO) at Boettcher Hall in the Denver Performing Arts Complex on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. And before he performs at Boettcher, Roberts and his trio stop at the King Center on the Auraria campus to play at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.  

Also, before the musical week winds down, the innovative quintet called Kneebody swings by Dazzle on Saturday and singer Claudia Acuna is at Mount Vernon Country Club on Wednesday with her quartet at the same time that saxophonist Ricky Sweum is at Dazzle

As good as it is to have artists visiting town, it’s even better when they arrive with their working bands. The band thing not only provides listeners with an opportunity to hear a range of fine players, but there exists a certain kind of chemistry in a group that performs together on a regular basis that’s simply hard to beat.

Rosenwinkel, who left Boston’s Berklee School of Music to tour with vibraphonist Gary Burton in 1990, for example, has Ben Street on bass and Rodney Green on drums. From 1992 until 1994, the guitarist was part of drummer Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band and, following that, he played in a variety of contexts including the group Fellowship led by drummer Brian Blade. At Dazzle, his current trio is on stage at 7 and 9 p.m. on both evenings ($25/$20 students for the 9 p.m. show, 303-839-5100).

While Rosenwinkel hails from Philly, pianist Roberts was born in Jacksonville, Florida. Blind from the age of five, Roberts was in his early 20s when he joined trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ band in 1985. In 1987, the pianist won the inaugural Thelonious Monk Competition and gained instant recognition. (By the way, the winner of the most recent Monk competition, which focused on the bass this time around, is Ben Williams, who performed at the Mount Vernon Country Club with Stefon Harris’ group Blackout just days after the Monk finals.)

With each of his first three albums reaching the number one spot on the Billboard jazz charts, Roberts went off on his own to explore the jazz tradition with both small groups and large ensembles.   With the DYAO, he and the trio (that has Jason Marsalis on drums and Roland Guerin on bass) perform works such as “Rhapsody in Blue” and “New Morning for the World” (with a text drawn from the words of Martin Luther King and narrated by the Speaker of the Colorado House Terrance Carroll). Tickets for the 2:30 p.m. concert at Boettcher on Sunday are $28/$22 students (303-893-4100). On Saturday, it’s just the trio in the King Center’s Recital Hall  at Auraria at 2:30 p.m. Roberts, whose latest CD is New Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol. 1, offers a free clinic and performance and there’s free parking in the Tivoli lot (303-556-3180).

Later on Saturday, the LA /New York-based Kneebody group returns to Dazzle at 7 and 9 p.m. with a repertoire filled with engaging and off-the-beaten-path twists and turns. The quintet features trumpeter Shane Endsley, saxophonist Ben Wendel, pianist Adam Benjamin, bassist Kaveh Rastegar and drummer Nate Wood, with Endsley and Rastegar providing the group’s Denver connection. The band’s latest CD is a collaborative journey with vocalist Theo Beckmann examining Twelve Songs by Charles Ives ($15).

Then the musical week finishes up on Wednesday with singer Acuna at Mount Vernon Country Club. Since moving to New York, the Chilean-born vocalist has garnered a good deal of attention and her new CD En Este Momento was produced by Branford Marslais for the Marslaismusic label. She has her quartet on hand that has Jon Cowherd on piano, Omer Avital on bass, Tony Escapa on drums and Juancho Herrera on guitar. The Mount Vernon event offers a buffet dinner starting at 6 p.m. and the music at 8 p.m. ($44.95 for dinner and music/$16 for the music alone, 303-526-0616). The club is located west of Denver on I-70 off of exit 254. 

On top of all this, saxophonist Sweum (of the Falconaires and the Chie Imaizumi Jazz Orchestra) has a Denver party celebrating the release of his CD, Pulling Your Own Strings on Origin Records, at Dazzle on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ($10/$7 students). The disc was a-pick-of-the-month CD on KUVO. And at Dazzle, Sweum is joined by bassist Jason Crowe, drummer Henrique De Almeida and guitarist Wayne Wilkinson. In Colorado Springs, Sweum also directs the Colorado College Jazz Ensemble. Additionally, on Tuesday, John Davis and friends take a look at the “Birth of the Cool” in a free concert in the Imig Music Building’s Grusin Hall on the CU campus in Boulder (18^th and Euclid) at 7:30 p.m. (303-492-8008).   

Normanprovizer@aol.com